


drought

by moonmother



Category: VIXX
Genre: Angst, M/M, Vampires, Violence/Gore, blood-drinking, keo - Freeform, leo/ken - Freeform, taekhwan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:18:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonmother/pseuds/moonmother
Summary: Taekwoon wants to atone for all he's done; it'll never be enough.





	drought

**Author's Note:**

> ♩ gackt - rain

The curtains part to reveal a sliver of moonlight, casting the cold room in a wash of blue. It fights the candlelight. It pushes back against the warm glow. They seek to possess the figures in the center of the chamber, away from the window and away from the small, boxed lanterns along the walls.  
  
Taekwoon’s hands shake as he drags the back of one against his mouth. His jaw hurts; it all aches in a pleasant sort of way, his body satisfied and taking in the effect of the blood. With this, maybe he’ll be full for a bit, that this will stave off the hunger for a bit. He can feel his eyebrows wrinkle at the thought.  
  
“Did you get enough?”  
  
Taekwoon looks over to where the man sits in the crook of his chair, the moonlight enveloping him and the shadows clinging to his edges only. Taekwoon, braced against the wall, doesn’t remember leaving his side; as he’s standing in the middle of the chamber, he must have.  
  
“I’ve had enough. Thank you, Jaehwan.” Taekwoon’s words sound disjointed. He cringes. He’s never liked the after-effects of feeding. There’s always a disconnect between the mind and body, the two acting separately.  
  
Jaehwan, white attire only dotted with pinpricks of red, is a better sight than most times. Taekwoon steps closer to inspect him. Heavy circles hang under his eyes that bely the small pull at the corners of his mouth, and the cold light revels the small flecks of red there as well –– that’s different. Taekwoon curls his fingers into his palms, squeezing tight to end the tremors running through him. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Jaehwan shifts a bit. His eyelids keep drooping shut and fluttering open, head lolling this way and that like it’s of incredible weight. “Shut it,” he mumbles with a smile pressed to the cushion and tucks his knees into the seat with himself.  
  
Jaehwan’s not a small man in stature, but he’s been underfed, kept bony and weak. He’s tall, and Taekwoon thinks he remembers what he looked like when he first arrived at the palace, very sturdy. He’s that no longer, and it’s hard to even remember.  
  
Jaehwan’s curled in Taekwoon’s armchair, folded in on himself. He looks like a phantom, white draped over his edges, disappearing. Taekwoon tried to not take much from him, but….  
  
Taekwoon’s feet slide against the floor, the single sound to accompany Jaehwan’s breathing. “I’m sorry,” he says, standing in front of the chair. “You need rest.” He reaches out but stops himself from brushing the long, curled bangs away from Jaehwan’s forehead, from pushing the sweaty strands off his hot skin. Taekwoon chews his lower lip.  
  
Jaehwan is unaware to this; he doesn’t notice the slow retreat of the vampire’s fingers, doesn’t have to miss the feeling of Taekwoon caring for him in such a personal way. It’s then that Taekwoon notices the craving he has to place himself in the chair as well. To curl into it with Jaehwan still there and maybe form themselves together.  
  
He doesn’t remember having a feeling like this before, one so strong and affectionate, but it almost doesn’t come as a surprise, not after looking at Jaehwan’s lips and the mess still there. Taekwoon is a mess. This shouldn’t be something he’s entertaining, that he’s let slip in, accumulate, but the more he thinks about it the greater it becomes, and suddenly it’s overwhelming. He chokes on it.  
  
When Jaehwan speaks, it jolts Taekwoon out of his head. Taekwoon thought he was surely asleep, eyes shut for so long. “No, I don’t,” he grumbles, pouting, but he’s too drowsy for the words to come out properly, all squishing around his lips in a garbled stream.  
  
They’ll retrieve him when the sun rises, always when Taekwoon is too sluggish to make them let Jaehwan stay. And Jaehwan will leave before he wakes, slip out and return to his work, stay away from him until the next time the prince grows hungry, when he can no longer put off drinking. And when he gives in, Jaehwan will be there –– the cycle restarts.  
  
But for now, he’s in Taekwoon’s chair, truly asleep and uttering soft snores, and Taekwoon watches over him.  
  
  
  
  
Jaehwan’s scent has almost become second nature to Taekwoon. It’s different from his own, but it reeks of familiarity, tinged slightly sweet. It’s become so distinctive to him, and he follows this scent down the corridor, his bare feet padding over marble. The palace is quiet in the evening, many of the inhabitants still asleep, and Taekwoon uses this moment to find Jaehwan.  
  
Not good, not safe, but Taekwoon has sought him out on his own before. If they’re seen together aside from feeding, it would seem like Taekwoon cares, and he’s not supposed to. He will claim what’s his, take what he wants, but finding a comfort that doesn’t derive from lust, that derives from an emotional part of him, is weak. Jaehwan will be for physical satisfaction –– nothing more.  
  
Taekwoon follows the scent to a back corridor on the western end. He can feel wizard magic prickle at his extremities, warning him that he’s getting too close every time he veers toward the outer wall, but he pushes it aside. Taekwoon peers around corners, but no one is there to glimpse him. The last corner he rounds, however, there is.  
  
Taekwoon stops in place. His chest tightens. The heavy curtains have been pulled back from the glass to let the fading light filter through, and it illuminates what was previously a private moment; it reeks of solitude, of bitterness. Taekwoon inches his feet forward and stops again.  
  
Jaehwan turns his head, robbing Taekwoon of his indecision to interfere or not. His eyes look…shattered. But then there’s his soft smile, and the corridor is filled with the jingles of Jaehwan’s shackles as he moves toward Taekwoon.  
  
Suddenly, Taekwoon’s not sure why he came. He left his room to bother Jaehwan with trivial matters, matters of Jaehwan’s lips on his hours ago, but stacked against the thought that they might get caught, Taekwoon realizes how stupid this is. But Jaehwan draws nearer.  
  
Gone are the pretty white fabrics he wore, but the kohl they used to rim his eyes remains, faint and smudged like Jaehwan forgot it was there. He’s instead dressed in the standard tan burlap the castle’s humans wear. His shackles attached to his wrists and ankles have enough give to let him walk and move his hands to perform small tasks, but the bruises never fade.  
  
Jaehwan only gets to remove the shackles when he visits the prince’s chambers.  
  
Jaehwan stops just before Taekwoon, and they stand close, the human’s scent permeating Taekwoon’s senses and enveloping him. It soothes him. But there’s also the curious shape of Jaehwan’s mouth, top lip curled in, and eyes shifting about, like there’s something he has to say but can’t. His smile is gone like he can’t prop it up anymore.  
  
And that’s when Taekwoon smells the second scent, fainter, but still very there. He was too focused on Jaehwan’s that everything else became secondary, but it’s one he recognizes, and it’s on Jaehwan.  
  
Jaehwan doesn’t ask when Taekwoon dips his head to smell the space between Jaehwan’s shoulder and neck. Yes, it’s there. Then the vampire’s eyes are drawn to a fresh set of scabs just above Jaehwan’s collarbone. Two dots. Two puncture marks, of _teeth_ , not made by Taekwoon; his should be higher, on the other side of Jaehwan’s neck. These aren’t his.  
  
He knows whose they are.  
  
“Are you alright?” Taekwoon’s whisper sounds too loud in the corridor. It seems to bounce back at him from the cold walls; it certainly does in his mind. He takes his thumb and brushes the wound. It’s not bad –– it could have been much worse –– but he doesn’t miss Jaehwan tensing under his touch.  
  
“Ask for me.”  
  
Taekwoon looks into Jaehwan’s eyes. “I’m not hungry. I don’t need–– Not now.”  
  
Jaehwan makes a noise in his throat and tries to smile, but it looks pained. Awful. He looks more tired than he has ever, dark circles hanging, cheeks hollow. Jaehwan says, “You don’t need me –– I know. But I need….” His words die with his lips pursed together.  
  
“Need, what?” Taekwoon should say that Jaehwan’s wrong. That he doesn’t need his blood but needs _him_ , but his thoughts aren’t organized. He keeps searching Jaehwan for more marks. His head is vaulting over the rational, and he burns.  
  
“To not be alone. I don’t care. Just please––”  
  
“I will.”  
  
Jaehwan doesn’t move. The dark curls of his hair hang in his face when he turns his face to the floor, and Taekwoon doesn’t know what to say. There’s nothing he can do. The king fed on Jaehwan, and Taekwoon is useless.  
  
Jaehwan clinks as he takes a step backward. “I need to leave before someone sees.” He pulls away. Jaehwan knows they’re pushing it.  
  
Taekwoon should be on his way as well, but he’s rooted to the spot. Every part of him feels alight with the thought of teeth sliding into Jaehwan’s skin, pulling him this way and that, and it’s a small wonder that Jaehwan wasn’t hurt worse than he was. Taekwoon’s seen the king shred bodies, leaving them to spurt at his feet. He kills for sport.  
  
Jaehwan makes himself scarce, jingling the whole way, and Taekwoon has unanswered demands.  
  
The title of prince is Taekwoon’s through loyalty and nothing more. The vampires have set up a hierarchal system to decide what falls where, who to answer to, and Taekwoon earned his spot by doing his duty in the war, by being on the winning side.  
  
But things have changed in recent years. He once had free roam outside the castle, used to sit in the valleys and follow the labyrinths of hollowed out caves. Lay in rivers and stare at the moon. Taekwoon was free once, but since then he’s been stripped of his freedoms, what he thought he fought for, and has been entrapped in the castle since. A curse has been laid at its walls, tailored to him, preventing his escape.  
  
Taekwoon sits in the throne room and hearing a voice but not listening to the words. He rubs the pad of his thumb along his lower lip with his eyes averted to his lap. A shout and a thud –– and Taekwoon doesn’t want to imagine it, but he can _smell_ it. Blood spilling over. Flowing freely. The clamor on either side of the room tells of barely contained excitement, bloodlust.  
  
The thought of Jaehwan is a distraction but just barely. The Jaehwan that left him earlier –– bitten, shadowed, hurt –– isn’t what Taekwoon wants to dwell on. Not when the one who did it is so close.  
  
The court keens as the king settles back into his throne, heavy sigh escaping him, and he leans far in Taekwoon’s direction. Blood drenches his hands, and it drips from where he clenches the sculpted seat into small puddles at his feet. “Would you like the honors?” he asks. His voice is curled with amusement from already knowing the answer, and his stare is intent, red eyes unwavering.  
  
Taekwoon meets the gaze; he slides into those bright pools, and he distinctly remembers the sensation of plunging into ice water –– chilled to the bone. But he dares not look away, look at the mess before him. He shakes his head.  
  
The king shrugs in return. He’s a thin, spindly thing, smaller all around than Taekwoon in size, but his strength is nothing to underestimate. Taekwoon watches a red droplet slide down his thin finger, gather, and drop in the space between them. The king licks his lips and says louder to the room, “Have at it.”  
  
The whining and growling crescendos as they descend upon the dismantled body. It was a human, now is a pile of disfigured skin and bones. Shredded tan burlap. Loud squelching rings in Taekwoon’s ears.  
  
The king reaches out and traces Taekwoon’s wrist, painting the skin. “You drink exclusively, don’t you?” He grins happily, and Taekwoon can’t look away. “Such a shame if that wasn’t available to you anymore.” With his fingernail, he digs it into the back of Taekwoon’s hand, breaking the skin. “You remember who you fought for.”  
  
Taekwoon grits his back teeth. He doesn’t speak.  
  
“You fought with me,” the king goes on. He sounds disappointed, like Taekwoon is perplexing to him and he just can’t understand why it would be this way. “I gave this to you,” he hisses. “You’ve violated my trust once, and I don’t think you’re realizing the weight you’ve put on yourself.”  
  
The king gives one last push into Taekwoon’s skin before withdrawing from him. “Don’t cross me. You’ll lose; one way or another, I will make sure.” He fully retracts, sitting back in his throne, and Taekwoon remembers the rush of killing.  
  
It hits him in that very moment what it felt like to rip a body in half, to watch as the organs cling to either side and finally split in a flurry of gore. He remembers crushing throats in his hands, fingers snapping bone and laying waste to dozens of lives in moments. He could do that just now. He’s killed his own kind before; it would be the simplest decision he’s ever made. Reach over and–– and––  
  
But.  
  
Taekwoon doesn’t move. He sits in his throne beside the king’s, knots those feelings deep in his chest, strangles them, and waits to be dismissed. And when he is he leaves with a quick pace, and Taekwoon can feel the smile trained on his back but doesn’t turn. He stays focused on what was asked of him.  
  
The prince returns to his chambers and shoos out all the cleaners that flocked upon realizing he vacated for longer than an hour. He catches one by the arm, whispering to them his request, before shutting himself in solitude. It’s quiet.  
  
“Don’t think on it,” he warns aloud. “Don’t.”  
  
Taekwoon looks at the knot in his chest, and tries to push it down. But then there’s the king’s face, looming, and Jaehwan’s face, and Taekwoon feels everything start to come undone. Unravel. The emotions surge back through him. The need to destroy. The thought of slamming bones hard enough that they fracture, and then another slam to break them completely, and more and more and more until they _disintegrate_ in his grip.  
  
Something snaps in Taekwoon’s hold, and it pricks the edge of his thought that he’s holding a case in his hands, and there’s a lapse between him picking it up and shattering it to bits between his hands. Glass is stuck in his palms and dusts the carpet, but it’s all overtaken by his thoughts of murder.  
  
Taekwoon believed in something once. He believed in being free, and he believed in a man, a vampire, that was going to do that –– that was going to set him free. Now, he’s worse off than before. He’s a raving creature locked in a cage, poked and prodded by the very one he once trusted most.  
  
He feels open, as if everyone is peering in at him and taking what he was so ready to give away. He––  
  
Everything halts. Jaehwan. He’s here.  
  
“Taekwoon?” Jaehwan’s voice is light, but it snaps Taekwoon back into awareness, and he’s now conscious of the shards stuck in his hands, the disorder he’s caused. In the outer chamber, his shelf is tipped over with books scattered everywhere, their pages knocked loose, and there’s glass. He’s broken several display cases, and Jaehwan’s feet….  
  
Taekwoon turns, holding up a hand to ward Jaehwan off. He’s standing just inside double doors, and his face twists when he catches sight of Taekwoon’s hand. “D– Don’t.”  
  
Jaehwan, dressed in the white, eyes darkened, looks like a burning star. He looks like one of the sketches of heaven’s angels found in the backs of old books. He looks wonderful, and everything’s horrible. Jaehwan, mixed with the chaos Taekwoon’s created of everything is too much, and he wouldn’t have asked for Jaehwan if Jaehwan didn’t ask it of him.  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“Nothing.” Taekwoon ducks his gaze. His face is numb, and he starts to pluck the glass from his skin.  
  
“Here, let me––”  
  
“No.” Jaehwan gives an indignant look, and Taekwoon steadies himself to say, “Your feet. You can’t walk.” Now he’s truly ashamed. He stares at Jaehwan for a moment before crossing the distance between them, glass crunching beneath him and digging in, and he swoops Jaehwan up into his arms.  
  
Jaehwan makes a surprised sound –– it’s endearing. “What’s the good of you walking all over the glass,” he complains.  
  
Taekwoon doesn’t respond but carries Jaehwan to his innermost room, to his bed. It’s a four-poster, so wide that Taekwoon feels like he’ll get lost alone in it, and he sits Jaehwan down as gentle as he can. He firms his jaw.  
  
“What are you doing?” Jaehwan squirms in Taekwoon’s touch, how he’s inspecting Jaehwan, turning his hands this way and that, looking at his feet, then finally pulling the collar of his shirt down a bit to check the base of his neck. “I’m fine,” he supplies, pushing hands away.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Jaehwan’s hands fall back into his lap, and his expression drops once more.  
  
“Are you alright?”  
  
Taekwoon is far into Jaehwan’s personal space, his lips so near. He glances up find Jaehwan peering at him with cheeks flushed. “I’m fine.” Jaehwan gives a short pause. “I hate it here, Taekwoon.”  
  
“Was that the first time it’s happened?” Taekwoon tries to keep his tone neutral to prevent himself from overthinking and drifting back into that dangerous zone he was in.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“You keep saying that. Don’t.” Jaehwan’s gaze drifts beyond him. His fists are balled tight beside his thighs. “It’s not your fault.”  
  
That statement is arguable, Taekwoon believes, but Jaehwan takes his hand in his and everything goes blank. “I hate it here.” He squeezes Taekwoon’s hand. “I’m tired of being scared and angry all the time”  
  
Taekwoon blinks. “You don’t look so angry.” And Jaehwan doesn’t. He looks like his amicable self, collected and composed, and Taekwoon can’t imagine an anger like that. An anger that lurks beneath the surface and doesn’t spring wild from whatever box it’s trying to be forced into.  
  
Jaehwan rubs his thumb against Taekwoon’s hand, turning it over so the palm is open to him. “Why’d you break everything?” Careful, he starts to pick out the shards of glass. He puts the pieces in his lap, tinkling together as they fall to a field of white.  
  
Taekwoon absently rubs his heel against his calf. “I didn’t mean to. Well, I did, but I didn’t.” He focuses on the sting of the glass, focuses on the top of Jaehwan’s head. “I can’t control it. It…gets away from me. I am––” he flicks his eyes to his hand, where Jaehwan’s started to grip him tightly, “––a type of vampire that is easily affected by emotion.”  
  
“You’re a berserker.” Jaehwan then squeaks, nicking himself, and he shoves his finger in his mouth. “Ah,” he mumbles around it. “I’ve heard the others talk about berserkers. You’re supposed to be really scary.”  
  
“I’ve heard that, too.”  
  
“At first, you were scary.” Jaehwan laughs and his finger slides out. He wipes it on Taekwoon’s thigh. He smiles like he’s waiting for Taekwoon to complain about the spit on his pants, but Taekwoon doesn’t say a word, too preoccupied with what he’s hearing. “I thought you were going to eat me.”  
  
“Jaehwan.”  
  
“Okay, but truly eat me.” Jaehwan holds Taekwoon’s other hand and starts on that one. “But you’re not so bad.” Taekwoon thinks he sees a smile on Jaehwan’s face, but he’s back to looking down and it’s hard to tell.  
  
“I thought you were weak,” Taekwoon confesses.  
  
Jaehwan looks up sharply. “What’s that mean?” He looks vaguely offended, but his expression is too serious and Taekwoon can’t help his laugh. “And now you’re laughing at me –– it’s not nice to make fun of the hungry.”  
  
This hushes him. “Th– that’s not what I meant.”  
  
“What do you mean, then?”  
  
Their linked hands are a bridge between them, but Jaehwan doesn’t go back to tending to the wounds now. He’s intent on the vampire. Taekwoon doesn’t break their shared gaze. “I remember–– I remember noticing you in your first weeks here. I saw you, and you just looked fragile. I didn’t think you’d last so long.”  
  
Taekwoon takes his free hand, cuts already sealed, and tugs on Jaehwan’s sleeve, a small plea for him to hear him out. “I think it’s your expression. You look too nice. But that was before I knew you. Despite all that’s happened here, you hold together well.”  
  
“What are you pulling at me for?” Jaehwan wrinkles his nose, and now he’s got both of Taekwoon’s hands in his. “Thank you,” he says quietly.  
  
“For?”  
  
Jaehwan shakes his head. “I won’t forget the first time they shoved me in here after,” Jaehwan gestures to himself, Taekwoon’s hands still locked in his, “doing me up, and I thought I was going to die. They had sentenced me to die.”  
  
Taekwoon grimaces.  
  
“And they shut the door behind me. I was scared; I hope you know. I was close to crying on the spot.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Stop, I said. And all of the sudden there’s _you_.” Jaehwan snorts. “And you look at me, blood in your eyes and– and you stare. Yes, you stare, and I’m trying to keep myself together, because I’m not sure if you’ll rip me open, or what; and then you say, in the smallest voice I’ve ever heard, ‘I’ll drink if you want. If not, sit by the door and don’t move.’ And I sat down at the door, and you didn’t come near me. That time or the next time or the next time.”  
  
Jaehwan’s voice grows softer. “But you looked so weak. I’d heard from others you’d been refusing to drink unless offered, and I took a chance.”  
  
“I fed from your wrist,” Taekwoon muses. He recalls the soft push of his teeth into skin, the slow suck as he finally satisfied his need, ended his drought of starvation.  
  
“And then you talked to me. You asked me the weirdest things, but it was like you were desperate to know me.”  
  
Jaehwan’s lips are moving, stretching and shrinking around words, but Taekwoon hears those in a haze. Would it be terrible of him to lean down and breathe Jaehwan in? He hasn’t bothered to take a breath in so long. He could now. He could inhale all that Jaehwan is, touch his lips, heal instead of hurt.  
  
“So, vampire,” Jaehwan addresses. He checks Taekwoon’s palms one last time, making sure all the glass bits are gone. “What caused all this?”  
  
Taekwoon doesn’t have to ask what he means. The air grows thicker, the answer heavy in his mouth, and he feels like he should get it out; Jaehwan’s expecting an answer. Jaehwan drops their hands, and his attention is directed in full at Taekwoon.  
  
Taekwoon says, “Because I’m scared, too.”  
  
Time exists in the stale view of the same walls, same faces. Taekwoon’s becoming less and less sure what the fall and rise of the sun means to him besides hiding in the dark and burying his face in pillows. The only marker that matters to him is Jaehwan.  
  
He invites Jaehwan back every chance he gets. He whispers to his handlers that he _needs_ Jaehwan, and it’s not a lie. It’s not a trick. Taekwoon never lies. And they leave Jaehwan and Taekwoon to it, but nothing ever happens that they believe will.  
  
Between sunrises: “You’re looking bad again.”  
  
Between tight smiles: “I’m fine.”  
  
It’s becoming weeks since he’s last feed, since he left the blood on Jaehwan’s mouth. Days that have passed since thinking of it: none. It preoccupies him with increasing fervency, asking to be confronted and tackled, either dismantled or acted upon instead of shoved to the corners of his mind, but Taekwoon can’t bring himself to that.  
  
Jaehwan has moved from sitting in Taekwoon’s armchair to laying on his bed, bright on dark blankets –– a splotch in the dreariness. Taekwoon will perch at the end, turned slightly, to watch as Jaehwan rolls around and talks about nothing.  
  
Useless. It’s all useless.  
  
“You really don’t look good,” Jaehwan says in a hushed voice one visit. He’s got Taekwoon by the elbow, snatched him as he was moving past, and his grip is surprising. Jaehwan’s sitting with his knees dipping into the bed, head level with Taekwoon’s. “Just–– you know I don’t mind.” Jaehwan lifts Taekwoon’s second hand into his, holding this one loosely. “It’s no good waiting.”  
  
And Taekwoon’s so empty. Jaehwan’s scent magnetizes him, but the trust he’s placed in himself has eroded in recent weeks. Weight is compressing himself on all sides, and he feels that the only option is to cave inward.  
  
The flowers on the bedside table have lost life, the water long gone. Their petals have shriveled; Taekwoon watched them die. He wonders if Jaehwan feels like that.  
  
He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Jaehwan’s face is angled close. His lips come in, gentle, and Taekwoon’s world is infused with streaks of light, shining through the darkness. Jaehwan pulls him close so that their chests are flush. Taekwoon and all his layers –– Jaehwan isn’t pushing through them, but his hands have slid up to Taekwoon’s wide shoulders, fingers digging in.  
  
Taekwoon’s mouth moves without dictation. This, this he feels. His eyes flutter open, and, yes, Jaehwan’s there, face crinkled and nose brushing against skin. He doesn’t deserve this. He wants this. He _feels_ this. Taekwoon cradles Jaehwan’s face in his hands and brings him away; Jaehwan’s quick breaths fill the space.  
  
Words escape. They’re flying away. Taekwoon tries to catch them and supply something to express all of his worries, but then Jaehwan smiles. He shows his teeth; his eyes nearly disappear; Taekwoon falls again.  
  
So he kisses him again.  
  
“Now?” Jaehwan asks. He’s pleading, hands balled tight into Taekwoon’s clothes. “Please?”  
  
But not now. He’ll ruin it if he drinks now; he’ll shatter the moment, and no, this can’t be spoiled. “Tomorrow,” he promises. The sun is rising outside, and when is tomorrow, anyway?  
  
Jaehwan seems to ask that as his head falls to Taekwoon’s shoulder.  
  
  
  
  
“I want to take you away from here,” Jaehwan declares. He’s standing on Taekwoon’s bed, towering far above where Taekwoon sits on the floor. He seems to stretch tall with dreams and ideas. He’s been spouting off several of those. “I’ll break the spell and whisk you away.”  
  
“You will, won’t you?”  
  
“Of course.” Jaehwan turns in a circle, spreading his arms out as he tramples across the bed. “We can leave together.”  
  
“If you ever have the chance, you should go.”  
  
Jaehwan stops, looking over his shoulder at Taekwoon. He looks like something awful has been suggested, something sour. “Without you?” Taekwoon doesn’t reply. Jaehwan knows the spell is too strong to be undone without a wizard’s help. And without that help, Taekwoon is trapped. Jaehwan knows this. “Something has to be done about that bastard first.”  
  
“I wish you luck, then.”  
  
A grimace. “I’ll think of a way. You’ll get your freedom.” Jaehwan slides down off the bed and stands over where Taekwoon sits. He tugs on a lock of his dark hair. “Now? Are you ready now?”  
  
Taekwoon, ears ringing, head spinning, nods, and Jaehwan slides into his arms to settle in his lap. “Why don’t you sit against the wall?” Jaehwan coaxes, and they inch closer until Taekwoon’s back is supported by the chamber wall. He hears Jaehwan’s voice in a buzz, can barely make out what he looks like even at this close.  
  
“Here.” Jaehwan takes Taekwoon’s face into his hands, angling it to his neck.  
  
Taekwoon loathes the dependency, hates having to do this to Jaehwan, but his teeth push down into the soft flesh of Jaehwan’s skin, and he can feel the blood drip into his mouth. He sucks harder; his hands pull on Jaehwan, and there’s a hand on the back of his neck, stroking his skin. Jaehwan’s grip is tight.  
  
And Taekwoon’s peeling apart. His thoughts are separating, and his body is drinking and his head is elsewhere. The taste of Jaehwan’s blood is sweeter than his scent, something intense and almost too sweet but not enough to give it up.  
  
Overflow. Soak it up. Come back down.  
  
Taekwoon unlatches –– suddenly, violently. He can feel the blood run over the sides of his mouth, fall between them. Everything’s crimson. “Jaehwan.” His words sound stilted.  
  
“I’m…alright,” Jaehwan says, but his voice is quiet.  
  
The panic doesn’t ease until Taekwoon truly sees Jaehwan. When he truly comes back into focus. There are two bites on Jaehwan’s neck, and Taekwoon wasn’t clean. The whole throat is smeared; Jaehwan’s clothes are stained as they’re meant to be.  
  
“I drank too much.” Taekwoon’s appetite is fuller than he’s been in awhile and the fog in his head has been lifted. He hugs Jaehwan close to him.  
  
“I just feel a little dizzy. It’s fine.”  
  
They sit against the wall huddled together, and it’s quiet aside from Jaehwan’s heart. Taekwoon can feel it through his fingertips. But time passes and his worry fades when Jaehwan giggles into Taekwoon’s own neck, “You’re just messy.” And tells him, louder, “Kiss me, please.”  
  
Taekwoon knows there’s blood all over his mouth, smudged around his lips and down his chin, but Jaehwan must know that. Jaehwan must not care. Taekwoon finds Jaehwan’s chin with his thumb and index finger and guides their lips together. He hasn’t been this aware in days and days.  
  
Their mouths work, and Taekwoon swallows the sigh exhaled into his mouth. He breathes him in. He breathes it all in.  
  
A need. Taekwoon has a need to shield Jaehwan from the hurt, the pain he faces here. He wants to be the barrier between it all –– he wants to make it so Jaehwan will never hurt again. And if that means Taekwoon won’t get to see him anymore then that’s how it will have to be.  
  
“Bath,” Taekwoon mutters, brushing the tip of his nose against Jaehwan’s lower lip. “We need a bath.”  
  
Taekwoon rests Jaehwan on his bed as he finds someone to draw a bath, and he lays beside him whilst the tub is filled. “You’re hiding,” Jaehwan points out, sleepy. Dried blood is flaking off him. They’ll need two baths.  
  
“Maybe.” Taekwoon knows he shouldn’t but he slides closer to Jaehwan, and puts his head on his shoulder. He still hasn’t told Jaehwan how much this means to him, what Jaehwan means to him, but he may or may not get that chance. He shouldn’t.  
  
Because, as he undresses Jaehwan and leaves his soiled clothes on the floor, this feels too fragile. Jaehwan flushes but keeps a steady eye contact with Taekwoon; Taekwoon breaks it to only undo the threading on his trousers.  
  
“Cold,” Jaehwan whispers and the silence is broken. They’re alone once more –– now just them –– and Taekwoon shirks out of his shirt, shimmies out of his trousers while Jaehwan’s heavy gaze stays on him.  
  
Jaehwan again –– “For such broad shoulders, you have narrow hips.”  
  
Taekwoon snorts, bites his lower lip to stop laughing. Jaehwan cracks a smile but still looks abashed as Taekwoon maneuvers him into the bathwater. “Staring?” he asks and regrets it.  
  
But Jaehwan is quick. As he slips into the water, he smiles a bit wider, “Of course.”  
  
It’s fragile because so much can go wrong. There’s no safe haven in the palace –– the safest spot is here in Taekwoon’s chambers, but even then there’s no guarantee. Taekwoon can’t trust himself.  
  
Their hands find each other under bubbles, and Jaehwan looks more comfortable now that he’s in the water. He narrows his eyes. “I’ll find the one who put the curse on this place.”  
  
“Not this again….”  
  
“I could do it.”  
  
“Jaehwan.”  
  
Taekwoon massages soap into Jaehwan’s hair, watches as the blood washes off his skin, but the bruises from his shackles stay. No matter what he does, he can’t remove those. He shivers in the water.  
  
“I trust you. You know that?” Jaehwan has his knees curled into his chest; a patch of soap suds still clings to his arm. “You should.” Jaehwan’s toes slide against the bottom of the tub, curling against Taekwoon’s.  
  
Taekwoon pushes against the water, sliding to where Jaehwan is and curls against him. Jaehwan melts in his arms, stiff for a moment because of their skin against skin, but becomes boneless after a second, slumping into him. Taekwoon needs to tell him every little bit; he needs to find a way to encompass all that he feels, but for now he sits like this. He says in Jaehwan’s ear, “I won’t make you regret that.”  
  
Taekwoon feels like it’s not enough, but for Jaehwan, for now, it just might be.

**Author's Note:**

> \- my (late) contribution to the concept of vixx as vampires  
> \- thank you for reading✨


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